People of country stand by me: Vinesh Phogat on Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh’s jibes

Kicking off her electoral campaign, the wrestler-turned-politician Vinesh Phogat hit back at the former Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and BJP leader, Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, stating that “the people of the country stand by her”.

During her maiden visit to the Julana constituency as the Congress nominee, she said Brij Bhushan stood exposed by his own statements. “Those who were happy over the loss of an Olympic medal by a player of the country are in fact traitors and should be booked for sedition,” she said, adding that it exposed their mentality.

Reacting to Brij Bhushan’s jibe that justice was done to Vinesh (as she could not win the medal), she said, “Let us wait. Justice also is to be done to him for whatever wrongs he had committed. The BJP and IT cell have been protecting him since the beginning,” she said.

Vinesh said the people of the country stood by her. “I am overwhelmed that I am getting so much love and affection from people even after I missed the medal. This reflects the genuine gesture of people for the struggle of a sportsperson,” she said, adding that her struggle for justice for the wrestlers would continue and she would emerge victorious in the field of politics.

The celebrated grappler, who was the face of the wrestlers’ agitation against Brij Bhushan, reached Julana with her family members, including husband Sombir Rathee and father-in-law Rajpal Rathee today.

Her arrival in the Assembly segment drew considerable gathering from rural areas. She conducted a road show from Pauli village to Bakhta Khera village via Julana town. It took about four hours to reach here from Pauli to Bakhta Khera- a distance of about 16 km.

Meanwhile, amid murmurs of dissent by some aspirants for the Congress ticket from Julana, former MLA Parminder Singh Dhull has decided to go by the party’s decision . Dhull himself was an aspirant for the Congress ticket. He had been MLA twice in 2009 and 2014 as INLD candidate. Later, he joined the BJP but lost the previous poll. He joined the Congress later. Dhull’s father Dal Singh had also been a six-time legislator from Julana and Jind segments since 1952 onwards.